04.08 Food Webs activity

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Transcript of 04.08 Food Webs activity

4.Not all adults feed at a high trophic level. Whale sharks (50 ft) are the largest fish and feed on plankton and small fish, while Great White sharks (20 ft) are the largest carnivorous fish and feed on sea lions, seals and large fish. Blue whales (100 ft) are the largest whale and feed primarily on plankton and krill, while the Sperm whale (45 ft) is the largest carnivorous whale feeding on fish and very large squid.(a) How does the location of each animal's position in relation to the producers contribute to their size? Be sure to look at the food chain and the amount of energy that is being transferred between the levels.(b) Why do you suppose the plankton feeders are able to attain such large sizes compared to the carnivores? 1. On the diagram below, what percentage of energy (from the choices in blue on the left) is transferred from a producer to a: (A) secondary consumer, (B) tertiary consumer, (C) quaternary consumer?

2. Look at the quote from Rachel Carson on the first page. What do you think the quote means? Use some of the terms we have covered regarding the topic of food webs in your one to two paragraph explanation.

04.08 Food Webs activitySince the Producer gets 100% energy from the sun and gives 10% to the Primary consumer, then the further you go up on the food chain, the smaller the percentage of energy is going to be transferred than it originally started with. So the Primary consumer would transfer 1.0% to the secondary. The Secondary consumer transfer 0.1% energy to the Tertiary, and the Tertiary consumer transfer 0.01% to the Quaternary consumer.The quote from Rachel Carson was "All the life of the planet is inter-related... each species has its own ties to others, and... all are related to the earth." . To me i think the quote means if you were to take away something from the food web for example, then mostly everything would die off since plants and animals are a food source for each other. For example if you took away producers from the food web, everything would die off because without the producers, then the primary consumers wouldn't be able to survive and if the primary weren't able to survive, then secondary consumers wouldn't be able to either and so on. So everything on the earth is all connected3. Why is it beneficial that many predatory fish have larval and juvenile stages that feed at a low trophic level, while the adults feed at a tertiary or quaternary trophic level?It is beneficial because the adults and larval and juvenile are separated. Since they are separated they are not all eating the same thing. This helps with them not having to compete with each other and it helps the survival of the larval and juvenile from declining if they had to fight over food with bigger predators.A) and B). The location of the animals position is related to the producers contributes to their size because the lower they are on the food chain the more energy they are taking in. For example some types of whales that only eat krill and plankton would be bigger because of the amount of krill or plankton they are taking in. Since the krill eat the phytoplankton they are taking in 10% of the phytoplankton's energy. Since the whale is eating large amounts of the krill and plankton it is taking in more energy. So the further you would go up the smaller the animal would get because less and less energy is being transfered between organisms which would effect their size.